Admit It. You Never Read It.
Ulysses might be better digested through a 30-hour marathon reading
You consider yourself pretty well read. In fact, you read a lot. You read good literature. You can talk in depth about books by Hemingway and Faulkner, and poems by Mary Oliver, and stories by Joyce Carol Oates. But there is one book, more than any other in the canon of great books, that many who consider themselves learned, have a hard time admitting they have never read.
Ulysses by James Joyce.
Considered by many as the best book ever written. The best novel by the best writer. But yet, so many say they simply can’t get through it, can’t finish it.
Full disclosure: I have read Ulysses. But it was many years ago and at that time I was not ready for it. I was not prepared. I was young, and my literary world was smaller then. I struggled, mightily. Recently, though, I ordered a new copy from the famed Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Company. There’s some history there. The original Shakespeare and Company, the one owned and managed by Sylvia Beach originally published Joyce’s masterpiece. It had been labeled as obscene and banned in places around the world, including the U.S., so Beach started a one-book publishing house and gave Joyce’s story to the world. The book coming from France will have a Shakespeare and Company stamp on the inside cover, and I…
